RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR Party song revival effort considered anachronistic US dollar and Chinese reminbi plummet against North Korean won once again North Korea Market Price Update: June 8, 2021 (Rice and USD Exchange Rate Only) By Choi Song Min – 2016.05.11 1:46pm News 
Choi Song Min News 
The North Korean regime has invested freshefforts into promoting a song written in the 1960s praising the Workers’ Partyand Kim Il Sung. As such, the song was recently awarded a “Kim Il Sung/Kim JongIl” award during the 7th Party Congress last week. The promotion of the songentitled “Nothing in this World to Envy” is a conspicuous attempt to furtherrally loyalty through nostalgia, but is eliciting scorn and ridicule from atleast some of the population, report Daily NK sources. “By dressing just like his grandfather KimIl Sung and elevating himself to president of the Party, Kim Jong Un is tryingto rekindle people’s nostalgia for the Party. The 60s song, despite the Party’spush to promote it once again, has already become a target of mockery,” asource from South Pyongan Province told Daily NK on May 10, adding that thesong has prompted people to look back on the 60s when the song was written. Sources in North Pyongan Provincecorroborated this news.This invariably brings realization that thecurrent situation is hardly comparable because back then people had less toworry about, with food and state distribution centers ensuring uninterruptedrations. Others have criticized the leadership for being “far behind thetimes,” as stiff competition in the jangmadang (market economy, official orotherwise) is now the primary focus of North Korean society. The key lyrics “Our father is Marshal KimIl Sung” have been mockingly reworded as “Our father is money,” and “Our homeis in the arms of the Party” has now become “Our home is the market,” thesource explained. Songs like this have long been used as keypropaganda tools by the state, but with the changing times, they havetransformed into targets for public satire, poking at the injustices in thesystem and poor governance. More recently, with the introduction of SouthKorean pop culture in the North, people are also rewording K-pop and children’ssongs from the South as another means to express their sentiments about theregime. There are signs that North Korea is running into serious difficulties with its corn harvest NewsEconomy SHARE News Facebook Twitter